Using the previous example of a woman who had been knocked down, kicked and told she was no good and always changing her mind, we will see how the original engram “awakens.” Some time later, when her present environment contains enough similarities to the elements found in the engram, she will experience a reactivation of that engram.
For example, if one evening the faucet were running and she heard the sound of a car passing outside (both of which were happening during the original engram) and, at the same time her husband (the man in her engram) was scolding her about something in a similar tone of voice, she could experience a pain in the side (where she was kicked earlier). And the words spoken in the engram could also become commands in the present: she might feel that she was no good or get the idea that she was always changing her mind.
The reactive mind is telling the woman that she is in dangerous quarters. If she stays, the pain in the areas where she was abused could become a predisposition to illness or a chronic illness in themselves. This phenomenon of “awakening” the old engram is called restimulation.
The reactive mind is not an aid to a person’s survival for the excellent reason that though it is sturdy enough to hold up during pain and “unconsciousness,” it is not very intelligent. Its attempts to “prevent a person from getting himself into danger,” by enforcing its engram content, can cause unevaluated, unknowing and unwanted fears, emotions, pains and psychosomatic illnesses that one would be much better off without.
